Scalability Issues in Optical Networks

Peter OHLEN  Eilert BERGLIND  Lars THYLEN 

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Communications  Vol.E82-B  No.2  pp.231-238
Publication Date: 1999/02/20
Online ISSN: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8516
Type of Manuscript: INVITED PAPER (Joint Special Issue on Photonics in Switching: Systems and Devices)
Category: Photonic Networking
Keyword: 
optical communication,  noise,  jitter,  repeaters,  optoelectronic devices, 

Full Text: PDF(766.4KB)

Summary: 
Since the inception of optical networking, a goal has been to create an all-optical network. The rapid breakthrough for WDM in point to point links has brought this prospect considerably closer, however, at the same time, questions regarding the scalability of the all-optical network remain. In this paper, we review our recent research in this area, partly performed within the European Union project METON (METropolitan Optical Network), and discuss the all-optical approach and different optoelectronic alternatives, mainly of the 2R (reamplify and reshape) type.